


If The Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me

by tigs



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-09
Updated: 2006-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 07:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2100156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigs/pseuds/tigs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Rodney kept his phone out on his desk now—well, propped up inside an empty coffee mug, where he could be sure that he wouldn't lose it in the shuffle of papers—but still he didn't call. Still his phone didn't ring.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	If The Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes, pt. 1: Many thanks to [](http://visionshadows.livejournal.com/profile)[**visionshadows**](http://visionshadows.livejournal.com/) and [](http://amy13.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://amy13.livejournal.com/)**amy13** for beta work. All remaining mistakes are my own. Title from a Jimmy Buffett song of the same name. (It seemed appropriate.) ~3100 words.

On the surface, Area 51 was pretty much perfect. It was everything Rodney had been working for since the SGC had invited him into that small box of a room beneath Cheyenne Mountain so many years ago, three weeks before the defense of his second thesis, two weeks after the offers of junior professorships from MIT and Cal Sci had come in.

He had a lab the size of an airline hangar, his choice of assistants to help him—the best and the brightest and all of them willing to accept that yes, he really was smarter than they were, thank you very much.

He had nearly unlimited funding for any project he wanted (except for the Puddle Jumper, of course, and *why* the SGC didn't see the logic in giving him that project, he didn't know; unlike *Bill*, he'd actually *flown* one. Also unlike Bill, he could actually *turn it on*.) He was starting to get over it, though. Every man had his price, after all, and apparently Rodney's was access to artifacts so top secret only the President knew of their existence.

So, yes. Area 51 was pretty much perfect, and for a few weeks Rodney told himself that he was happy. Early mornings, late nights, conversations with colleagues who oftentimes grabbed onto the concepts he was proposing on the first explanation (although, true, never as quickly as Zelenka had), nothing resembling imminent death on the horizon.

Happy, he told Jeannie during their now weekly (well, twice in a row, anyway) Sunday night phone call. Everything I've ever wanted. You should come visit, show Madison the desert. There's even a restaurant here that serves nothing but tofu.

It was during the second phone call that Jeannie asked, "How about everyone else, Mer? How are they adjusting? John? Elizabeth? Carson?"

To which Rodney said, "I—"

*I don't know*, was what he'd started to say, but that wasn't quite true, of course. Zelenka had sent him a several-hundred word email about idiocy in labs not being limited to the Pegasus Galaxy, and also how he'd almost rather take a weekly dive to the bottom of the ocean in a puddle jumper than teach his first year physics seminar. Carson had sent two cheery, chatty emails, too, talking about how there were apparently teams in the galaxy who spent more time in the infirmary than Rodney's team had, and oh, they were having blue jello for lunch, and Colonel Sheppard was being given a new team, although Carson didn't know what number it was, and Samantha Carter had asked about Rodney the last time she came through for a post-mission check up, and Carson had promised to say hello, so hello.

He said, "It's been a few days—" (two weeks) "—since I've talked to them, but last I heard, they seemed to be settling in. They seemed to be doing good."

Jeannie asked him to pass along her greetings the next time Rodney spoke to them, and then she hung up, what with it being time for Madison's bath, leaving Rodney sitting on his couch, staring down at the cell phone in his hand. He pushed buttons until he was scrolling through the phonebook, highlighting Carson's name first, then Elizabeth's, then Sheppard's, but before he pressed send, he—

—he'd already been on the phone for half an hour already that evening.

Plus, it was dinnertime in Colorado and one thing he'd forgotten about during his two and a half years spent in the Pegasus Galaxy was how annoying it was when telemarketers called right in the middle of dinner. All it had taken was one call the night before, as he'd been in the middle of eating his nice, freshly delivered pizza to remind him of that.

Also, it was Sunday night; everyone was probably getting in a few last hours of relaxation before the start of the week ahead. Which was what Rodney should be doing, too, so he flipped the phone closed again, dropped it onto the cushion beside him and turned on the TV.

There would, after all, be other, better times to call.  
*

Really, it was all Jeannie's fault. Of that, Rodney was sure, because he'd been going along, perfectly (well, mostly, somewhat) happy (as happy as he *ever* got, anyway) at Area 51, settling in, and then she'd had to go and ask about Sheppard and Elizabeth and everyone else.

It wasn't, of course, that Rodney *hadn't* been thinking of the rest of the Atlantis expedition over the past few weeks, it was just that… it had been more abstract. A thought floating in the back of his head, an 'oh, yes, I should give them a call'. A, 'Ha, ha, I'll have to remember to tell Sheppard about this', or, 'If only Elizabeth were here, she'd set them straight.'

Now that Jeannie had brought it up, though, turning the abstract into reality, the floating thought became more of an itch. The 'remembering to tell Sheppard something' turned into 'wanting to walk down the hallway and tell Sheppard something right *now*'. When his assistants in the lab did anything particularly idiotic (which they were doing on a more and more regular basis, it seemed), he could almost hear Zelenka beside him, joining in the mocking. When they served blue jello in the commissary, he had to remind himself that he didn't need to take more than his fair share so that Ronon could steal one dish and Rodney would still have as much as he wanted.

He kept his phone out on his desk now—well, propped up inside an empty coffee mug, where he could be sure that he wouldn't lose it in the shuffle of papers—but still he didn't call.

Still his phone didn't ring.  
*

Except that one day it did.

He was in his car, driving home from the base, when he heard a buzzing coming from the passenger seat, shaking the journals he'd snuck out of the compound that night. It took him two rings and a near miss with the car coming at him from the opposite direction before he got it to his ear. Before he snapped, "McKay."

If it had been one of his minions, he was pretty sure he would have been able to hear them trembling over the phone. Instead, he heard laughter.

"Ah, Rodney," Carson said. "I see that your time back on Earth has not mellowed you."

"You were expecting it to?" Rodney asked, and there may have been a touch more curiosity than biting contempt in the question than he meant there to be.

"No, no," Carson said. "It's just good to know that some things never change. And that you, at least, answer your phone even if you don't respond to your email." He then proceeded to cough in Rodney's ear twice, a not-so-subtle admonition.

"Yes, well. I've been busy," Rodney said, to which Carson said, "Ah, of course you have been. And just how, exactly, have you been filling your time?"

So Rodney told him—as much as Carson had clearance for, anyway—and then Carson told him what had been happening at the SGC: about the new rash that had made lace-like patterns up SG-10's arms. About the joy of having whatever medicines he wanted just at his fingertips. About how he'd encountered two airmen who were even more difficult than Rodney was, which he hadn't thought was possible. About the accident-prone marine that Sheppard had been saddled with and Carson was just waiting to see what injury he'd come back through the Gate with this time.

Then, as Rodney pulled up to his house—small, overlooking the desert—Carson said, "Look, Rodney. Would you mind giving Elizabeth a call? I've tried calling her three times now and she hasn't returned any of them. I just—"

He trailed off and after a moment Rodney said, "Yes, yes. Of course," because there wasn't really anything else to say.  
*

Rodney had been meaning to give Elizabeth a call anyway, after all.

He'd just been waiting for a time when it wasn't the dinner hour, or a Sunday night, or during primetime TV, and as Rodney looked at his watch now—6 o'clock for him, 7 o'clock for Elizabeth, and that was probably as good a time as any. So he scrolled down to her name, pressed 'send', and listened to the phone ring: once, twice, four times.

He tried not to be surprised when her voicemail kicked on, but somehow he'd thought that if Elizabeth was screening her calls, at the very least she'd pick up for him.

After he'd left a message, after he'd hung up again, Rodney stared at his phone for a long moment, then scrolled down to Sheppard's name on his contact list. Carson had said he was off-world, yes, with his new team, but Rodney was on a roll here and somehow, after talking to Carson, after hearing Elizabeth's voice, it just seemed like the thing to do.

Indeed, Rodney got Sheppard's voicemail. No ringing, just a click and that familiar voice: "Hey, you've reached John Sheppard. Leave a message and I'll get back to you. And remember, as Lincoln said, 'In the end it's not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years.'"

For a moment, Rodney just stared at his phone. Then he cleared his throat and said, "Yes, okay, so if I'd needed a deep, inspirational thought for the day, I would have recorded Oprah. But anyway, yes. It's me. Carson told me you were off breaking in a new team. I thought I'd call and tell you to offer them my sympathy." He paused. "But really, I just. It's been a while, I thought I'd say hi. I— Listen, just give me a call when you get back."  
*

But Sheppard didn't call.

On the second day, Rodney started checking his phone when he came into his office, because missions rarely lasted longer than three days, right? Well, unless something went horribly wrong, and knowing Sheppard it would, but still.

No missed calls.

And none on the third or fourth days, either.

But he did get another email from Zelenka, which Rodney replied to pretty much immediately, because one of his assistants had just spent three days trying to make a certain equation work, only for Rodney to take one look at it and see the error in the math on the second line.

Zelenka, Rodney knew, would appreciate that.

Zelenka emailed back with a story of his own, as well as news on Miko and Simpson, and Rodney replied again, sharing what bits of news Carson had told him, and then they were on the seventh day.

One week gone—14 times he'd wanted to walk down the hall and tell Sheppard something, not that he was counting—and still no phone calls, no messages.

Of course, Rodney thought, it was likely that Sheppard had an excuse. Maybe the mission had lasted longer than three days. Maybe he and his new team came back from one mission and left right away on another; the SGC was working as fast as it could to battle the Ori, after all. Maybe they were keeping him as busy as he'd been on Atlantis. Or maybe he'd been injured, laid up in the hospital—but no, Carson would have let him know if that was the case, of that Rodney was sure.

Then he thought that really, he had no (true) grounds to complain. It had taken him two and a half weeks to leave a voicemail for Sheppard, after all, and only because Carson had taken it upon himself to call Rodney first.

Still, he didn't stop checking his phone every time he walked into his office.

On the eighth day, he called Elizabeth again. Same voicemail message, except this time he reached it immediately; she'd turned her phone off.

When he called Sheppard, though—because it only seemed right, to call one, then the other—this time Sheppard's phone rang. Four times, then Sheppard's voice. "Hey, you've reached John Sheppard. Leave a message and I'll get back to you. And remember, according to a Carnegie named Dale, 'People rarely succeed unless they have fun at what they're doing.'"  
*

After that, Rodney began to get a little annoyed.

Okay, more than a little annoyed. But he had a right, he thought, because the last time he and Sheppard had seen one another had been in the SGC, right before Rodney hopped a plane to Nevada. It had been nearly a month with no word after two and a half years of seeing each other daily and there was busy and there was *busy* and then there was rude.

Especially since he apparently had time to eat meals with *Carson* and really, how much time had they spent 'hanging out' on Atlantis, anyway? Carson hadn't been invited to the team movie nights, after all. They hadn't gone on several months worth of missions together, camping out on rocky soil. They hadn't escaped certain death together at least once every other month, thank you very much.

But then, on the thirteenth day since his first phone call to Sheppard, Rodney had a thought.

He was sitting at one of the lunch tables in the commissary and two of his colleagues had joined him—Miller, and another one who's name Rodney had never managed to learn—and it reminded him, suddenly, of those meals he used to share with Zelenka and Sheppard. The ones where he and Radek would be talking science and Sheppard would be ogling one of the scientists.

Miller and the other guy were obviously not Sheppard and Zelenka, but what, Rodney wondered, if Sheppard had truly created himself a new team. Obviously they couldn't be Rodney and Ronon and Teyla, but what if—?

It took awhile to broach the subject with Carson during their conversation the next night, but Rodney thought he managed to be pretty subtle all the same.

"So," he asked. "How is Sheppard's new team working out? Is he dragging them out for team dinners? Movie nights?"

Carson was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "You know he could never find another you, Rodney."

"Of course he couldn't," Rodney said. Quickly, probably too quickly, but Rodney was already thinking beyond the words that were coming out of his mouth, because Carson had answered his question, albeit in a roundabout way. And it was the answer Rodney had thought he'd wanted to hear, but for some reason he didn't find any satisfaction in it.

For some reason, it just made Rodney that much more angry, because—

Because Sheppard wasn't the only one who'd been forced back from Atlantis. Elizabeth still wasn't answering her phone calls. Zelenka was stuck teaching Physics 101. Carson was on the phone too much for him to be anything but lonely. And Rodney's ideal life, the one that he'd wanted since he'd known he could have it, was proving to be, well. Not everything he'd dreamed it would be.

If he'd been back in Atlantis still, he would have marched down the hallway, forced Sheppard's door open by any means necessary—even rewiring, if that was what it came down to—so that he could tell him he was being an idiot.

Now the only thing he could do was call.  
*

He waited until the next day. Until he was back from Area 51, alone in his house. It wasn't a Sunday, but it was dinnertime in Colorado and *he didn't care*.

He dialed the number, listened to it ring all four times, listened to the message, then said, "What?" He hissed the word, the mouthpiece of his phone pressed tightly to his lips. "Are you trying to pretend that the last three years didn't exist? That we never went to Atlantis? Do you think you're the only one who misses it? Because let me tell you, Sheppard—"

But suddenly there was nothing more he wanted to say. Nothing more to say. Because Sheppard was in Colorado and Rodney was in Nevada and he couldn't walk down the hallway and knock on Sheppard's door until the other man let him in. He couldn't do anything from here at all, except call and leave messages. Except wait for Sheppard to call him back, like friends did, like the last few years were more than a dream.

"You know what, never mind. Give me a call sometime. If you have time. You know the number." Then he hung up, dropped the phone on the couch, and walked away. Away to his bedroom, to his bed, where he lay down, staring up at the ceiling.  
*

He woke up to the sound of a phone ringing. It took him a moment to place the sound, then another to realize that yes, he really should get off the bed and answer it. Then he realized *phone ringing* and he ran. He answered it just as the fourth ring was finishing, pressing the necessary button without looking at the caller ID.

"McKay," he said, sounding breathless, exactly like he'd run halfway across his house, and for a moment all he heard was silence.

Then a deep breath.

Then a drawled: "Hey, Rodney."

And for a moment, all Rodney felt was relief. His legs suddenly weak, he sat down on the couch, rubbed a hand over his hair, and it was only when he rubbed the same hand over his face that he realized he was smiling.

"So you are still alive," he said after a moment. "I was beginning to think that Carson was lying to me."

Another pause, and Rodney could picture John leaning back in his chair, a lazy (or perhaps rueful) grin on his face. "Yeah," he said. "Sorry about that. But you know how things can get at the SGC. Just go, go, go."

And he was lying, Rodney knew he was lying, but it was okay, because it meant that Rodney wasn't the only one having a hard time adjusting to being back. It meant that he probably wasn't the only one waking up, still expecting to smell salt on the air, to look out his window and see waves rather than cacti.

"I know," Rodney said. "Yes, I know."

There was a long, almost strained moment then, but then Sheppard said, "Listen, I've been meaning to tell you. You'll appreciate this, I think—" and that sounded so normal that the tension was suddenly gone, like it hadn't been a day, a week, much less a month since they'd last talked.

"Tell me," Rodney said. He leaned back on his couch, closed his eyes, and smiled.

End.

Author's Notes, pt. 2: Credit where credit is due. I snagged the idea for the inspirational quotes from _Veronica Mars_. I found the quotes I used at: <http://www.heartsandminds.org/quotes/fulfill.htm>


End file.
